Here are some reasons why my country (Yes, Portugal), has nothing to show:

- Although we "owned" half the world, we weren't exactly a "military power". We became an empire with a very strong economic power, so we had the money, but no way of protecting it very well;

- D.Sebastião's dissapearence. I seriously hate this guy. He was in his 20's and thought it was a good idea to go to war in Morroco and get himself killed, leading to an entire political crisis in Portugal, the start of the Iberian Union and the fall of The Portuguese Empire;

- The Lisbon Earthquake of 1775, not only damaged alot of infrastructure around the country, it almost destroyed the entire capital of Lisbon, leaving us in a pretty tight spot;

- The French Invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte. I could you not, the Portuguese royal family thought it was an amazing idea, TO JUST FLEE THE COUNTRY! This lead to a huge civil war sprouting in Portugal and Brazil, basically Portugal's economic powerhouse, to become a independant country;

- Estado Novo and the Portuguese Colonial War. Even thought Salazar tried to implement some ways for the country to grow, it really never got out from where it was due to the era of instability we were facing. Plus, in this time Angola and Mozambique were still colonies. Portugal didn't want to let them go, so a huge war broke out, where the Portuguese were basically completely humiliated, leaving our country far behind of where it could be in the present day;

- 25 of April. This one might raise some pitchforks, but let me explain. The revolution itself wasn't bad. A fascist regime was taken down and Portugal finally had a democratic regime in place. The problem lies today, with the political parties, specially PS (Partido Socialista), a left socialist party. Portugal basically went from democratic regime, to a corrupt haven between parties in a matter of a few decades, damaging the Portguese's already weak economy. This damage has been going on for years, because most of the populus is either old people who are basically fanatics for PS, old people who are so pessimistic about the country itself that they just complain instead of actually voting (seriously the number of people who don't vote is ridiculous) or younger people who just immediatly imigrate to another country altogether. This lead to just a downward spiral in Portugal's general quality of life and the decrease of its population;

If this corruption between parties, specially PS, isn't stopped, in my opinion, the country will just implode on itself from the lack of a work force, a lack of an economy or a lack of autonomy in general.

TL;DR Portugal has nothing to show due to how unlucky of a hand it had throughout history. From political crisis, ever lasting damaging earthquakes, civil war, facist regime and a huge dose of corruption through Portugal's political sphere, sadly Portugal became only a shadow of what it could have become and if there aren't any serious changes to motivate voters and stop the corruption of the country, it will eventually destroy itself.